O & C Lands

Friday the Bureau of Land Management released a menu of options for managing its public forests in Western Oregon. At stake are 2.5 million acres. They’re called O&C Lands because they were once owned by the Oregon and California Railroad. This is being closely watched by conservation groups, timber companies and local governments:

Timber sales on O&C Lands traditionally provided a lot of money for counties in Western Oregon. But that funding nearly dried up in the 1990s. That’s when a number of endangered species protections went into effect.

As Congress prepares to adjourn next week, still unresolved is a pair of bills with wide-reaching implications for southern and western Oregon. Over the past year, Senator Ron Wyden has pushed hard for compromise measures that would address long-standing conflicts over logging and water. But now those bills are in limbo.

Thursday the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee passed a new version of Oregon Senator Ron Wyden’s bill to boost logging on public forests called O & C lands -- named for the Oregon and California Railroad that once owned them.

U.S. Senator Ron Wyden participated in a ceremony Thursday (today) in Springfield highlighting the expansion of a new EmX bus stop. The Senator also talked about the importance of increasing access to public transportation, and cutting emissions as well.

Wyden: “It’s clear to me that we need the Executive Branch playing offense on this issue and to put in motion the steps that really only Congress can work with Executive on and that is the challenge of dealing with climate change when you have to bring in India, China, and so many of the developing nations.”

O&C forestlands make up only about 13 percent of all federal forestlands in Oregon and about 8 percent of all Oregon forestlands. The O&C forestlands are interspersed checkerboard fashion among parcels of privately owned forestlands. Under these circumstances, does it really matter whether some of the O&C lands are opened to industrial harvesting of timber?

In the City Club’s final program on the O&C issues, Greg Haller and Ernie Niemi will present their perspectives on the issues involved.

Oregon Senator Ron Wyden has unveiled a bill to balance competing demands on more than two million acres of federal forest land in the state. So far, opinions differ on whether he’s found an approach that can resolve this long-standing tug-of-war.

Flanked by Governor John Kitzhaber, the Senate Democrat said his bill hit the sweet spot between conservation and cutting timber.

Ron Wyden: “We have found a way to create good-paying jobs in rural Oregon, and protect our natural treasures.”

Debate over the definitions of prescribed uses of the O&C forestlands has been going on since the late 1980s. Despite years of discussion, agreement about how much relative weight should be given each use remains unsettled. The debate has recently flared anew as revenues from O&C timber harvests shrink and Congressional programs to replace those revenues have proved unreliable, insufficient, and likely soon-to-be nonexistent.

Roughly half of Oregon’s 61 million acres of land area is forest land. The federal government owns about 60 percent of the forests, the state owns about 3 percent, Native American tribes about 2 percent, and private citizens the remaining 35 percent.